Abstracts

Workshop Abstracts and Speaker Notes

‘Interreligious Dialogue and Reconciliation’, Reverend Donald Reeves

My presentation outlines the difficulties of dialogue and peace building in the Balkans – how small initiatives get swamped by politics, etc, and how religions are politicised and become the cradle of the chosen trauma… Possibilities for dialogue will be explored, beginning with the need for participants to be self-critical.

Donald Reeves is the Director of the Soul of Europe – working in Bosnia and Kosovo for 11 years on reconciliation projects-including bringing together Serbs and Bosniaks – survivors of the Omarska killing camp to agree on a Memorial; for those killed there. The Soul of Europe was instrumental in the rebuilding of the Ferhadija Mosque in Banja Luka – one of 16 destroyed in the war.-

Publications

The White House – from fear to a handshake (describes the process used in the Omarska project).

Contributor to Just Reconciliation – essays in New International Studies in Applied Ethics.

The Role of the Independent Media in Shaping Civil Society:

Post-conflict Justice, Reconciliation and Religion, Dr Milja Radović

The purpose of this research is to identify the role and impacts of the independent media in shaping and strengthening civil society in the Balkans. The independent media were continuously raising public awareness of the necessity for reconciliation and dialogue becoming the only space for public debate on both the Balkan’s past and present, thereby connecting citizens across the region. I focus on themes of post-conflict justice, reconciliation and religion as covered and debated through the independent media. My case study is Serbian based Peščanik (radio programme, web site, and publisher) as one of the most prominent independent media in the region. This case study shows the importance of the independent media both for the process of reconciliation and for re-building societies in the region.

Milja Radović is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Edinburgh, and a Research Associate of the Project on Religion and Ethics in the Making of War and Peace. Her research has spanned across an interdisciplinary field, focusing on religion, media and culture, and she has research interests in religion and politics, identity, gender, and nationalism; media, violence, religion and extremist movements; cultural space as space for reconciliation/dialogue; post-conflict justice and reconciliation processes, with a special focus on the Balkans. Dr Radović is currently preparing a book on Transnational Cinema and Ideology: Religion, Identity and Culture. In her PhD, she explored cinematic representations of nationalist-religious ideology in Serbian film.

‘Peacebuilding and the Fragmentation of Public Space’, Stefanie Kappler

Despite the ambitions of numerous peacebuilding actors in Bosnia-Herzegovina to unify society as well as its political and economic structures, there is a tendency of the public sphere to disintegrate. The multiple divisions of the public space have indeed led to the emergence of social sub-spheres in which people form their identities and voice their needs. In that sense, political and peace-related processes are moving from the formal political sphere into a more fragmented landscape of social counter-spaces.

Stefanie Kappler is a PhD student at the University of St Andrews. Her research focuses on EU peacebuilding in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the light of the local forms of agency it encounters. Stefanie has published on questions related to peacebuilding, resistance, culture and legitimacy in Security Dialogue and Cambridge Review of International Affairs, amongst others.

Policing and democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dr Andy Aitchison and Jarrett Blaustein

The paper begins by sketching out a preliminary distinction between those police forms and practices which support the formation, development and maintenance of democracy (policing for democracy) and those processes and institutions through which police are governed which mean the police are themselves a democratic organisation (democratic policing). Key aspects of the last 15 or so years of internationally sponsored police reform are examined in light of this distinction. Finally, the recent work of Ian Loader and Neil Walker is used to interrogate the initial distinction between policing for democracy and democratic policing. This is preliminary work and we look to see if, after the establishment of basic forms of policing for democracy, developing forms of democratic policing might help build trust and stability in ways which support the long term stabilisation of the wider democratic polity.

Andy Aitchison is a lecturer in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. His research has focused on post-war criminal justice reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in 2011 he published the monograph ‘Making the Transition: international Intervention, State-Building and Criminal Justice Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina’.

Jarrett Blaustein is a PhD student in his final year at the University of Edinburgh School of Law. His research examines the role that intermediary and local actors play in actively shaping the police reform process in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

‘Citizenship and political communities in Bosnia-Herzegovina’, Dr Igor Stiks

In this presentation I analyse transformations of citizenship and political communities in Bosnia-Herzegovina in four periods. First, it is necessary to describe how Bosnian republican-level citizenship was defined within socialist Yugoslavia, where citizenship was bifurcated into the federal and republican citizenships immediately after the Second World War. In the second part, I analyse how and to what extent the citizenship question played a role in democratisation and fragmentation of the Bosnian political scene between 1990 and 1992 and how it was used as a tool of nationalist mobilisation. Furthermore, I describe re-definitions of Bosnian citizenship during the war (1992-1995). Finally, I attempt to scrutinise the structure and current functioning of Dayton Bosnia?s multi-layered citizenship since the Dayton Peace Agreement introduced two-layer (state-level and entity-level) and multiethnic citizenship (ethnically-based political participation).

Igor Stiks ‘The European Union and citizenship regimes in the Western Balkans’ in Jacques Rupnik (eds) The Western Balkans and the EU: ‘The hour of Europe’ (European Institute for Security Studies, 2011) Chaillot papers, June 2011,pp. 123-134

‘Sub-state territories and political membership in Bosnia and Herzegovina’, Dejan Stjepanović

The presentation aims to elucidate the complexity of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s sub-state polities and their relations to citizenship, especially in terms of political membership and governance arrangements. The presentation will focus on the case of the Brčko District and the problems of political participation within the consociational structures of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The presentation is partly based on the CITSEE working paper titled “The Territorial Politics of Citizenship:

This presentation will address practical and conceptual challenges commonly faced in conflict transformation in situations where religion appears as one of a number of factors prolonging a conflict. Christian theologies of reconciliation have sometimes been construed as fundamentally less ‘practical’ than Muslim or Jewish approaches. A closer examination of some recent Christian theologies of reconciliation will show that this is to misunderstand these theologies.

Cecelia Clegg is Senior Lecturer in Practical Theology at the University of Edinburgh, and has a particular interest in the theology of reconciliation and the role of local faith communities as agents of reconciliation. Before coming to Edinburgh, Dr Clegg was a member of the staff of Trinity College Dublin (Irish School of Ecumenics), teaching ‘Conflict Transformation’ and courses on Religious Sectarianism, and worked as a conflict transformation practitioner in areas marked by intra-Christian violence in Northern Ireland.

Bosnia-Herzegovina as a Critique of the Post-Liberal Approach to Interreligious Relations, Gorazd Andrejc

In current discourse on interfaith relations in Bosnia (especially among the “bridge-buliders”), two elements stand out: a strong distinction between individual/personal faith and the communal form of religion, and an emphasis on the commonalities and shared elements as centrally important for interfaith relations. Both of these elements seem to be in tension with the post-liberal approach to interfaith relations which is currently influential in the UK, US and some other countries. I will argue that the two approaches can and should learn from each other: the post-liberal approach (Scriptural reasoning) can offer some cautionary advice, especially regarding the theory of interfaith relations, to Bosnian interpreters of interfaith dialogue (I take Ivan Lovrenovic as representative), but also and perhaps more importantly: the postliberal approach can learn important lessons and benefit from the B-H social-religious reality, as well as from the thinkers and practitioners of dialogue who are embedded in it.

This paper explores the way in which two women’s NGOs have been working to increase the role of women in all areas of society. The first, Zena Zenama (ZZ) has at its centre a philosophy of tolerance and respect that is rooted in the secular belief of Feminism, although many of its members also have religious belief. The second organisation, the Bosnian Women’s Working Group (BWWG) is a sub-group of the South East Europe Women of Faith Network (SEEWFN) which is part of The World Conference of Religions for Peace. Before looking in detail at the work of both these NGOs a brief look will be taken at the patriarchal culture in which they work in order to understand the obstacles and challenges they face and identify the role which religion has played in supporting and maintaining this culture.

Professor Kollontai is Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Education and Theology, York St John University. Her research focuses on religion in social contexts, and especially on the dynamics of religion in contributing to peace and reconciliation. During the past three years the context for much of this research has been Bosnia-Herzegovina.